


reflexión de la luz

by Valor



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Romance, alternate universe - cardverse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:47:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22643605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valor/pseuds/Valor
Summary: “...We should always have something to look forward to, Your Majesty,” Mercedes tells him. “In the future, it may be all we have to help us make it through the night.”The war between the Kingdom of Hearts and the Kingdom of Spades begins in earnest. Felix vows to die for his duty; Sylvain swears to die in rebellion against it. Dimitri digs graves for them all until Claude teaches him to plant flowers instead.Cardverse AU ft. two sets of star-crossed lovers who learn to make sacrifices and be star-sworn instead.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Claude von Riegan, Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 10
Kudos: 45





	reflexión de la luz

**Author's Note:**

> direct sequel to [and i'll love in all the wrong ways](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22611484), but it's an entirely unnecessary read for this. i feel like i'm just incapable of writing anything other than bad renditions of aus how do i stop

Dimitri looks tired. The weight of the crown has left its imprint on his hair, and Felix stares at it, annoyed, until impatience has him reaching out to try and fix it. It doesn’t help—it never does—but the King of Spades looks up at him with a grateful look regardless, and that’s more than enough for now.

“So,” Dimitri begins, but he lets the word hang. Though the platter of fruits remains untouched, he's begun to work on the cheese. (It’s good. He’s getting his appetite back, even if it’s all a slow process.)

Felix doesn’t answer, but it says enough when he reaches for the wine. A maid steps forward to pour it for him, but he dismisses her with a wave of his hand and helps himself until the glass is nearly full. 

“Did he tell you anything useful?” Dimitri asks, once the maid has gone and they are left alone. He takes the bottle with a gentle touch before it can spill over. Felix lets him.

It’s tempting not to answer again, but: “Yeah.”

Dimitri is patient enough for the both of them. Sometimes, Felix thinks it’s because he’s still trying to make amends for a time when he wasn’t.

“There’s a battalion assembling just north of the Brionac Plateau,” Felix continues, when the tension in his jaw starts to ebb. “He thinks they’re going to receive naval support from Albinea when they’re ready.”

“Hm.” Dimitri takes a grape; it’s too small, and his fingers are too large, for him to peel it properly. Felix rolls his eyes and snatches it away to do it for him.

“You know you can just eat these as is,” he gripes, taking off strips at a time. “You’re the king now, but you still have these stupid habits…”

“...from when I was a child,” Dimitri finishes, and takes the fruit from Felix’s hand. “I know. My apologies for the inconvenience, Felix; I—”

“I’d rather you just learn to eat them instead of wasting your breath apologizing.” So Felix says, but he still takes another grape and repeats the process again. Dimitri is wise to hide his smile. “So? What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Dimitri admits, and though it’s a frustrating answer to receive, it’s an honest one, too. Felix reels in his frustrations and hands him another grape. “Dedue has advised I write to the King of Clubs and ask for aid, but… I worry.”

Felix wipes his hands on a napkin. “He’ll come, if you ask.”

Dimitri tries for a smile. It’s not a good look with all the worry in his eyes. “I’m aware that he’ll _want_ to,” he acknowledges. “But also that it’ll be asking for more than he can afford to give. The Kingdom of Diamonds has been vying for his territory for quite some time, and if he were to divert his forces westward to aid us, then…”

Then, another war. A kingdom lost and a balance broken, all because the one King known for having the steadiest head on his shoulders decided, for once, to think with his heart instead. 

Felix quietly slides the wineglass over. Dimitri looks at it, considering a taste, before he shakes his head.

“Focus on what we have, then,” Felix decides, and rises from his seat. “Gather your troops and tell them where to go. If you keep wasting your time worrying about what to do instead of acting, we’ll have Hearts soldiers at our gates before the end of the moon.”

“What about you? Where will _you_ go?” Dimitri asks. He has both the power and the authority to get Felix to stay, if he wants; seeing that crack of concern, Felix almost thinks that he might. But it’s a Queen’s duty to protect a King, and never the other way around; sooner or later, Dimitri will learn, just as their fathers did before them.

“To Rhodos Coast,” Felix answers, making for the doors. The guards outside hear his footsteps and open them for him. “If they’re going to attack us by sea, our navy needs to be ready in the right place. There’s no point in keeping them gathered in the Fraldarius ports.”

Dimitri rises too, but he doesn’t give chase. “Will you at least—”

“No. Taking people with me will only slow me down.”

“Felix…”

“Mitya.” His steps slow to a stop. Felix takes two deep breaths before he turns around. “Quit your worrying. I’m your Shield; I _will_ return.”

“...You will,” Dimitri accepts, after a stretch of silence. “But it will be because you are my Queen and my friend. Not for anything else.”

* * *

The castle is no less quieter with Felix gone, but it feels emptier in spades. And though there’s an overwhelming amount of work to do in response to a declaration of war, Dimitri can’t bring himself to sit and get started. Should he focus on evacuating the people nearest to the border first? If so, where will they go? What of the soldiers, the weaponry, the supplies they’d need? How long will their reserves last, and how quickly can they replenish them? And—

“You’ll make holes in the carpet with all your pacing, Your Majesty,” Mercedes says, pulling him from his pit of concerns. “Won’t you sit with me and enjoy some tea?”

“...My apologies,” Dimitri sighs, rubbing at his eyes in an effort to ease the strain on them. Mercedes waits patiently until he joins her at the table to pour him a cup; when she does, the scent of chamomile meets him in gentle waves. “Thank you, Mercedes.”

“Oh, don’t thank me for my disobedience,” Mercedes smiles, eyes sweeping over the pastries laid out before she takes her pick. “The Queen spoke with me before his departure. He instructed me to slip some sleeping medicine in your tea, because you wouldn’t get any rest otherwise.”

Dimitri pauses, just before his lips touch the warmed porcelain.

Mercedes laughs, bright and soft. “I didn’t,” she assures. He takes a sip. “The one that the King of Clubs gave me is far more potent, anyway.”

He sets the cup down, but the tension that slowly seeps away from his shoulders is more from her company than from any sleep tincture she _probably_ didn’t really add to his drink. Mercedes is many things, but duplicitous has never been one of them.

“So two people have made attempts to drug me through you,” Dimitri says, though the smile on his face clears every possibility of misunderstanding. 

“It would seem that way, yes,” Mercedes answers, sipping her tea. Dimitri does too, and welcomes the warmth it brings. “Have you spoken with him?”

“With the King of Clubs? No, I…” he trails off, frowning. “...Not yet, but I suppose I must. Even if he can’t spare the men, his spies may have gathered some information we don’t have access to.”

Mercedes hums. “Perhaps,” she agrees. “But I was speaking more on a personal level. It’s been several moons since you’ve seen him last, hasn’t it?”

Dimitri nods. The last time had been during his birthday celebrations, when Claude had arrived on wyvernback with an exasperated entourage of retainers following close behind. That had been nice. “We write to one another, on occasion.”

“On more than simply matters of state, I hope.”

“...From time to time,” Dimitri admits, nursing the tea close to his lips. “But I doubt I’ll have either time or opportunity to continue. I must focus my every effort on this war.”

“Is that not why you should make the time to write, Your Majesty?” Mercedes asks. “It’s especially in times like these that we should keep our loved ones close. Write to him, tell him about your day, make plans.” She smiles, and gently lays her hand atop his own. The dark spade on her wrist pulses, brief and light; a glimmer of the same shape reflects in Dimitri’s eye. Mercedes offers her warmth, her comfort, and it helps in soothing the weight he feels in his chest. 

Dimitri releases a slow breath. “Thank you, Mercedes.”

She gives a nod. He’s grateful for the way her touch remains, even after the spades sigil fades from them both. “...We should always have something to look forward to, Your Majesty,” Mercedes tells him. “In the future, it may be all we have to help us make it through the night.”

* * *

As much as he wishes otherwise, Mercedes ends up being right. 

The war begins with bloody clashes along their borders, and there are stories of how the waves drag along their shores in deep, sickening reds from the battles fought at sea. When Felix reunites with him in Rowe territory, arriving just past mid-day with a small retinue of soldiers, the bone-deep exhaustion that sets in his eyes only lends the terrible weight of truth to all the tales.

Their greeting lasts for as long as it takes for their eyes to find each other on the battlefield; they split off into different directions immediately afterwards, carving separate paths towards the same destination. All things considered, they make a decent enough dent in the enemy troops before the Eight of Hearts signals for a retreat. 

The sun sets to mark the end of another day, and torches guide both sides when they come to collect their dead. Funeral pyres reach high into the night skies, and it’s Annette who steps forward, heartbroken and brave, to sing a hymn to say goodbye.

Dimitri distances himself from it. Felix notices, because of course he does, and follows him to where he slinks off.

They sit in silence, for a while. Felix’s breath comes quietly; Dimitri’s does not.

“This is going to happen again tomorrow,” Felix finally says. The words come choppy, a little tight; he’s always been better at swinging his sword than at offering words of comfort, but he still tries, sometimes. “You have to deal with it. Don’t put up this pitiful front.”

Dimitri closes his eye. Beyond the crackling of fire and the quiet hum of the impromptu dirge, he hears the sharp clanging of steel and the desperate, final cries of hapless soldiers dragged into yet another war. It’s difficult to tell which screams are from today and which are from nearly a decade ago.

“...I know,” he replies. His voice comes quietly, in a whisper so raw it makes Felix shift. “I made a promise, that this would never happen again. And yet—”

Felix scoffs, a soft little sound that gets lost in the space between them. “You act like you’re the one who aimed the first shot. You’re not.”

Dimitri remains quiet. He isn’t the one who made the declaration, yes, but was there more he could have done to prevent it? A treaty he could’ve better discussed, relations better fostered? 

_You can’t expect to make sense of the Mad Queen,_ Ingrid had written. _Stay strong, Your Majesty. All of us would gladly fight and die for this kingdom you’ve saved. This is our home._

Home.

Home, now burning at the edges; home, now desecrated with blood and ash. Home, now—

“Hey,” Felix snaps, forcibly drawing him from the depths of all his shadows, all his guilt. “Don’t go there, wherever it is. Stay _here_. There’s still a war to win, you stupid boar.”

Dimitri lets out a huff of breath. Felix hasn’t called him that in a while, but it has long lost its sting for something more sentimental, all its jagged edges sanded down flat. “...Right,” he says. Right. “My apologies, Felix.”

“Hmph.” Felix crosses his arms and turns his head, dragging his attention back to the distant flames. The action jostles the necklace he stubbornly keeps around his neck, a simple chain of silver with a simpler red ring. Dimitri looks at it, quiet, until Felix notices and hides the ring in a gloved fist. “What?”

“Did you have a chance to see him?” the King asks. “When you were out at sea. The Queen of Hearts only sent some of her Numbers here, so I’d assumed…”

“No,” Felix answers, before Dimitri can finish. “I told him to stay out of my path.”

But they both know it’s not something Sylvain would do by choice. Felix demands distance for the sake of his safety, and Sylvain draws closer in open invitation every time. He’s reckless. Hopeless. Desperately, tragically in love, and the only thing keeping him from giving his life in some foolish attempt on the Queen of Hearts’ life is how Felix demands that he live—even if living means they will always, always be enemies.

“...But you’ll see him, eventually,” Dimitri murmurs. “And when you do, his Queen isn’t going to let him do anything short of fighting until he takes his last breath.” 

He sees Felix’s grip on the ring tighten, and he hesitates in laying a hand on his Queen’s shoulder in an effort to offer comfort. Predictably and understandably, Felix jerks away and rises to his feet.

Guilt pools, thick and heavy, in Dimitri’s stomach. But this is the truth, and Felix has always known it regardless of what sweet promises were made between him and the Jack of Hearts. Saving the Kingdom of Spades has never meant fixing the Kingdom of Hearts, or rebuilding the Kingdom of Diamonds, or reuniting the Kingdom of Clubs; it has meant instead that they could make it to the next day and the day after that, and still have a place to call _home._

“If it comes down to killing him or fulfilling my duty to you,” Felix says, “I’m not going to hesitate. You don’t have to worry about that.”

“Felix, that’s not…” ...what he meant, that’s what it will boil down to, in the end. Duty above all, and everything given fully and freely for the sake of the crown. Isn’t that a lesson they’ve learned through all their years of pain and loss? 

Glenn had died for his country. Rodrigue had died for his king. Lambert had died because he had been both. Now Felix stands, a Shield and Queen before he is a friend, a lover, and a man, and says he is ready to do the same.

When Dimitri swallows, it tastes like ash on his tongue.

* * *

He ends up taking Mercedes’ advice to write, but not immediately. It takes him two more sleepless nights before his demons catch up to him; three, before Dedue enters his tent with some paper, a handful of quills, and ink. 

“Your Majesty,” he greets. “I’ve brought the items you’ve requested. Should I get you some tea as well?”

“No, Dedue; this is enough. Thank you,” Dimitri replies, uncapping the ink. His fingers are still trembling by the time he takes the quill, and he lets out a quiet, humorless laugh in response. “...I thought I was getting better at this.”

It’s a show of vulnerability he keeps tucked away, hidden to all but his Jack. Dedue understands, even if he cannot always help.

“Shall I write for you?” he asks. Dimitri is slow to answer, but Dedue is patient.

“No,” the King breathes, setting the quill down to wring his hands, as if the pressure will help settle them. It won’t. “I prefer to write it myself, but thank you for your offer. Now, go—our men deserve to have a good meal in their stomachs after our victory tonight, and I wouldn’t trust anyone other than you to see it through.”

Dedue doesn’t seem very convinced, but he has never been the kind to question the will of his King. He bows low to signal his departure; as he leaves, Dimitri lets his gaze fall onto the spade on the back of the Jack’s neck, set over a faded circle.

(It will not be like that, for Felix and Sylvain. If the Kingdom of Hearts falls, Sylvain will go with it; and if the Kingdom of Spades does, then Felix will follow suit. There will be no meeting halfway.)

He takes a slow breath and focuses back on the paper in front of him. He dips the quill into the ink, taps off the excess, and writes his first words.

_To the King of Clubs,_ he begins, but the letters are shaky, messy. Impersonal, too, in a way he doesn’t like; cold, in a way he wishes it wasn’t.

Dimitri pushes the paper aside and reaches for a new sheet. His hand still trembles, and his endeavor to steady himself only leads him to pushing down too hard and breaking the tip. With a frustrated sound, he reaches for the second quill, thanks Dedue for his foresight, and tries again.

It takes him a few attempts, but finally:

_My dearest Claude,_

_I need your help._

**Author's Note:**

> twitter (@silvergraced) or ask me for discord!! i'm always dying to talk about these boys please help


End file.
